WRITER IN THE DARK , neil perry

18

"surprise!" everyone yelled in unison, startling neil. his face quickly grew from shocked to a giant smile when he realized what was going on.

"happy birthday neil." amélie said. neil quickly pulled her into a giant hug. he knew that she had done all of this. i mean, maybe his friends helped a little bit, but he knew that she was the only person who'd ever do something like this for him. someone who cared about him so deeply. not even his parents had ever done something like this.

his eyes quickly became glossy at the sight of all his smiling friends. "thank you guys. you didn't have to."

"it was all amélie." knox remarked, making amé blush and deny it.

"it.. was all of us."

neil couldn't keep rambling on about how happy he was. he held his tears of joy back. "thank you so much everyone."

"you can open your presents now if you want." charlie suggested, motioning over to the blanket that was sat on the ground beside the cave.

"these, these are all for me?" neil asked joyfully. he looked like a kid on christmas morning. he sat down in front of the pile of dark blue gifts, his eyes darting around to look each one and figure what he should open first.

"who else would they be for?" marianne laughed, watching neil grin as he looked through every present with excitement.

he sounded like a broken record, the way he kept repeating how excited he was and how thankful he was for everything. "no one's ever done anything like this, i appreciate it."

"okay, this one's from.." he trailed off, struggling to find the name tag. "pitts and meeks."

"oh i'm excited." pitts smiled, watching intensely as neil tore into their present.

"we read it last term, and you always talked about how much you loved it so we figured that we'd buy you a copy." meeks quickly added, watching neil pull out a hard cover copy of 'to kill a mocking bird'.

"to kill a mockingbird." neil whispered, stroking the cover and admiring it in silence. "i'm so happy to add it to my collection."

"see? i knew he would like it." meeks said, cracking a smile and elbowing pitts right in the ribs.

"thank you, you two." neil hummed, a smile forming on his face again. he grabbed another gift from the pile, but was quickly stopped.

"wait! not that one. that one's special, i'll give it to you later." amélie snatched it away from him with a smile before he even got to speak a word of protest.

neil could barely contain himself. "now i'm even more excited. i'll open the one from knox, next." he grabbed knox's gift, and held it up to show all his friends.

"oh god, not mine." knox blushed, embarrassed by his gift. he hid his face while neil opened it carefully.

"buddy holly? how'd you know!" neil exclaimed, flipping the record over to read the back. knox glanced at amélie, who gave him a grin.

"who doesn't like him?" he quickly replied, shifting his gaze to an excited neil.

"i don't have this record yet, thank you." he took his eyes off the record and looked at knox, giving him a smile and a nod.

"do mine next, neil." cameron piped up, pointing at a small but thick present in the pile.

neil grabbed it, and double-checked the tag to make sure it was the right one. "okay. this is cameron's.."

he tore away the wrapping to reveal a box of black ink pens, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to figure out what they were. "those are fancy pens. they're a dollar each and they write finely. they used to use them in old books." cameron said, neil's face slowly growing back into a grin.